Did Japanese-American Soldiers liberate
Dachau?

The 522nd Field Artillery Battalion of
the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which consisted entirely of
Japanese-American soldiers, is acknowledged by the US Army as
the liberators of one of the 123 sub-camps of Dachau, and also
as the liberators, on May 2, 1945, of some of the prisoners who
were on a death march out of the main Dachau camp.

The Go for Broke National Education Center
web
site has the following information about the sub-camp that
was liberated by Japanese soldiers in the 522nd Field Artillery
Battalion:

On April 29, 1945, several scouts
were east of Munich in the small Bavarian town of Lager Lechfield
when they saw a sight they would never forget. The Nisei came
upon some barracks encircled by barbed wire. Technician Fourth
Grade Ichiro Imamura described it in his diary:

"I watched as one of the scouts used his carbine to shoot
off the chain that held the prison gates shut. . . They weren't
dead, as he had first thought. When the gates swung open, we
got our first good look at the prisoners. Many of them were Jews.
They were wearing striped prison suits and round caps. It was
cold and the snow was two feet deep in some places. There were
no German guards. The prisoners struggled to their feet. . .
They shuffled weakly out of the compound. They were like skeletons
- all skin and bones. . ."

Contrary to claims made by the Go for
Broke National Education Cener, the United States Holocaust Memorial
Musuem and the US Army credit the 12th Armored Division of the
US Seventh Army with the liberation of the Kaufering IV sub-camp of
Dachau on April 27, 1945 with help from soldiers in the 101st
Airborne Division, who arrived on April 28, 1945. Kaufering IV
was one of 11 camps, all named Kaufering and numbered I through
XI, which were located near Landsberg am Lech, not far from the
city of Munich. Kaufering IV, which was near the town of Hurlach,
had been designated as a sick camp where prisoners who could
no longer work were sent.

Entrance to Kaufering
IV sub-camp of Dachau

Photo Credit: USHMM

During World War II, the 522nd was attached
to five different divisions. The official credit for liberating
a sub-camp of Dachau and the marchers from the main camp was
given to whatever division the 522nd was attached to at the time.

A new book entitled "Dachau, Holocaust
and US Samurais - Nisei Soldiers first in Dachau" by Pierre
Moulin tells the story of "the role played by very special
liberators coming from 10 Concentration camps in USA: The US
Samurais of the 522nd Field Artillery BN who were the first to
reach the camp of Dachau." However, the U.S. Army does not
recognize any Japanese-American soldiers as the liberators of
the main Dachau camp.

This photo purportedly
shows the liberation of Dachau

The photo above, which purportedly shows
the liberation of Dachau by the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion,
100th Division, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, is from this web
site: http://www.hirasaki.home.att.net.This
photo was obviously not taken at the main Dachau camp, and it
was not taken on April 29, 1945 when Dachau was liberated, judging
by the amount of snow on the ground. The photo appears to have
been taken after May 1, 1945 when it snowed in the Dachau area.
One prisoner is holding a bed roll which indicates that these
prisoners were on a march out of the main camp when they were
discovered by Japanese troops, probably on May 2, 1945.

Two days before the main Dachau camp
was liberated, there were 6,887 prisoners, half of whom were
Jews, that were marched out of the camp. The marchers were liberated
by American troops several days later after the German guards
had abandoned them.

Jews and Russian POWs
on march out of Dachau main camp

Solly Gaynor was one of the Jewish prisoners
who was rescued on May 2nd from a march out of the main Dachau
camp by a Japanese-American soldier. Gaynor is a Lithuanian Jew
who was forced to work in a factory in the Kaunas ghetto from
August 1941 to June 1944 when he was sent to Dachau to work in
one of the sub-camps. In the last days of the war, the sub-camps
were evacuated and the prisoners were marched to the main camp,
from which some were sent on another march to the Bavarian Alps.
Gaynor credits Japanese-American soldier Clarence Matsumura with
saving his life.

The following quote is from the web site
www.hirasaki.home.att.net:

Two liaison scouts from the 522d Field
Artillery Bn, 100/442 RCT, were among the first Allied troops
to release prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp. I watched
as one of the scouts used his carbine to shoot off the chain
that held the prison gates shut. He said he just had to open
the gates when he saw a couple of the 50 or so prisoners, sprawled
on the snow-covered ground, moving weakly. They weren't dead
as he had first thought.

When the gates swung open, we got
our first good look at the prisoners. Many of them were Jews.
They were wearing black and white striped prison suits and round
caps. A few had shredded blanket rags draped over their shoulders.
It was cold and the snow was two feet deep in some places. There
were no German guards. They had taken off before we reached the
camp.

The above description of "the Dachau
concentration camp" obviously refers to one of the many
Dachau sub-camps, not the main camp.

The following quote is from an article
written by Burt Takeuchi which was posted several years ago on
the web site of the Nihonmachi Outreach Committee in San Jose,
CA:

Liberation of Dachau by Japanese
Americans
522nd Field Artillery Battalion 442nd RCT
April 29th 1945

The war in Europe was coming to a
close as the Allies raced across Germany to Berlin. Elements
of the US 7th Army chased the remnants of the German army retreating
into Germany. Among the fastest moving units was the 522nd Field
Artillery Battalion a Nisei (Second generation Japanese American)
unit that was originally attached to the famed 442nd Regimental
Combat Team. The 442nd won the most decorations for any American
unit for its size during WW2. The unit would win 7 Presidential
Citations (5 while rescuing the Lost Texas Battalion in France
1944), 20 Medals of Honor (America's highest decoration for valor)
and over 9000 Purple Hearts (decorations for wounds suffered
in combat). The 522 had a reputation for having the fastest and
most accurate fire in the US Army. They were hand picked by Gen.
Eisenhower (Commander of Allied Forces in Europe) to help lead
the attack into Germany. The 522nd liberated several of the sub
camps near Dachau and actually opened the main gate at the Dachau
concentration camp. Some 5000 survivors of the Dachau concentration
camp were liberated by elements of the 522 on April 29th 1945.

On April 29th 1945, Staff Sgt. George
Oiye was member of a forward observer team (patrols to search
for targets for artillery to shoot ) for artillery battery C
leading the 7th Army racing into Germany. Elements of the 522nd
Field Artillery Battalion were spread out over a 30 mile radius.
They had orders to destroy military targets in Munich and to
demolish the headquarters of the dreaded SS. They also had warnings
to be on the look out for top Nazis such as Adolf Hitler and
Eva Braun (Hitler's mistress). They chased the retreating German
units, captured and disarmed them. According to 522 records they
were the first Allied unit to reach Dachau.

Unintentional Liberators
"We weren't supposed to be there" said Oiye. Since
they were spread out over such a wide area (30 KM) and Dachau
was so big they simply ran into it. Japanese American soldiers
shot the lock of the main gate of the outer perimeter fences.
Then opened the barbed wire gates of the infamous crematorium
the site were thousands of Jewish prisoners bodies were burned
into ashes. The building had tall smoke stacks and large ovens
with bodies smoldering still inside. Prisoners were often gassed
or died of the harsh slave labor conditions at Dachau.

"A Hard Thing"
Oiye explained his reaction to visiting the infamous camp: He
was mainly on the muddy roads out side the camp when it started
to snow. "It was very cold and he saw the prisoners shivering.
Some were in very bad shape,"emaciated, sick, diseased,
bugs crawling on them and dying" He recalled the stripped
suits they wore and some had no shoes. Oiye and his fellow soldiers
gave the prisoners their extra gloves, bed rolls, and food. His
reaction to the prisoners: "we were not prepared to deal
with coming across a concentration camp." "We came
across by accident and were not prepared. It was a hard thing"
He remembered that he " felt bewildered, then angry and
fearful. " Oiye explained the sense of guilt "that
mankind had transgressed so far.... the worst case of sin I know
of."

"War was one thing but that kind
of treatment of mankind; that is not normal" Oiye stated.
Some of the 522nd soldiers found ladies handbags made of human
skin. He could remember seeing "intricate" tattoos
on these handbags. Gloves and lampshades were also found to made
of human skin. Other soldiers reported that dozens of prisoners
that were horribly tortured and murdered.

Note that the article quoted above mentions
that the Japanese-American liberators "opened the barbed
wire gates of the infamous crematorium." The barbed wire
gate, through which today's tourists enter into the crematorium
area at Dachau, was not there when the camp was liberated. The
crematorium was outside the prison compound and not surrounded
by barbed wire. There were no bodies smoldering inside the ovens
on the day the main camp was liberated because the Germans had
run out of coal to burn the corpses as early as October 1944.

In an e-mail to me on July 5, 2007, the
author of the above article, Burt Takeuchi, wrote the following
correction:

The sighting of bodies smoldering
was made by Oiye probably after the WW2 was over. He recalled
seeing smoke rising from the smoke stack at the crematorium.
I do not think it is an over site on his part.

After the liberation of Dachau, the American
Army took over the camp and burned 800 bodies in the crematory
ovens, including the bodies of the SS soldiers who were killed
during the liberation.

If any ladies handbags made of human
skin were ever found at Dachau, they were not put into evidence
at the American Military Tribunal where the Dachau Commandant
and 39 of his staff members were put on trial. There were 31,432
survivors of the main Dachau camp who were liberated on April
29, 1945, not 5,000 as claimed in this article by the Nihonmachi
Outreach Committee in San Jose, CA. Most of the prisoners in
the sub-camps had been marched to the main camp and only a few
sick prisoners had been left in the sub-camps.

Burt Takeuchi, the author of the article
about the 522nd, wrote the following correction in an e-mail
to me on July 5, 2007:

The figure of 5000 survivors liberated
is not the total of the Dachau camp population. It is the number
of survivors that were estimated to be encountered by the 522nd
in sub camps, near the Main Camp and along the roads traveling
to Dachau. Yes, over 30000 survivors were liberated in the entire
liberation by the Allies.

Does it really matter which unit is
first to Dachau? I think its more important that they stopped
and tried to help the survivors. The Allies are all in the same
army and in the same cause.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which
was composed of second generation Japanese-Americans (Nisei),
but commanded by Caucasian officers, was a volunteer unit that
was created on February 1, 1943. One third of the soldiers in
the 442nd were recruited from the 70,000 native-born Japanese-Americans,
who had been interned on the American mainland, and the remainder
were Japanese-American volunteers from Hawaii.

A Japanese veteran featured in Spielberg's
film, "The Last Days," was Katsugo Miho who told the
story of how the 522nd liberated one of the sub-camps of Dachau.
According to the book based on "The Last Days," Miho
told the following story:

Our reconnaissance squad shot open
the locks to one of the sub-camps and allowed thousands of inmates
to get out. Starving, looking like the walking dead, they began
to roam the snow-covered countryside, just trying to find something
to eat. The Germans had been using horses to cart their artillery
and supplies, so there were a lot of dead horses lying along
the roadsides. Against their better judgment, these inmates were
stripping the horses and eating the flesh. Some of them died
because they couldn't digest something like that.

[...]

In the meantime, whilst I was in and
around Dachau, my Dad was still considered a Prisoner of War
and being interned in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Many members of the
442nd RCT throughout the war had parents, brothers and sisters
in the so-called Relocation Centers throughout the United States.

Allach sub-camp of
Dachau, April 30, 1945

The photo above, which shows the liberation
of the Allach sub-camp of Dachau on April 30, 1945, is from this
web site: www.jamsj.org/442team.html.

The following explanation for the photo
above was copied from the web site:

These Jewish prisoners at Dachau are
celebrating their release by the 522nd Artillery Unit. The American
flag was provided by the Japanese American soldiers. Many of
the Jewish prisoners look healthy and strong because they were
among the group recently brought to Dachau from areas where they
were used as hard laborers.

Contrary to the claims made by the web
site of the 442nd RCT, this photo was not taken at the Dachau
main camp, but rather at the Allach
sub-camp which was liberated by the 42nd Rainbow Division
of the US Seventh Army. The prisoners in the photo look healthy
and strong because the typhus epidemic had not spread to Allach
until about a week before it was liberated, so there were not
many sick prisoners. Just before the main Dachau camp was liberated,
prisoners had been brought there from the sub-camps, but this
is not a photo of the main camp. Note the wooden fence in the
background which proves that this is not the main Dachau camp.